OTTAWA, Ont. — The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) and participating provincial trucking associations are sponsoring a comprehensive program of retirement savings plans for employees and owner/operators in the Canadian trucking industry.
The program is being offered through Standard Life for small, medium and large-sized carriers.

“By offering this new service, CTA and the provincial associations are not only trying to help the workers in the trucking industry prepare for retirement, but we are also trying to assist the industry in becoming more attractive in terms of retaining existing employees and owner/operators, as well as attracting new ones,” says CTA president and CEO, David Bradley. “The industry is competing with other sectors for a shrinking pool of labour and we’ve got to meet or exceed the benefits those other sectors are providing.”

Bradley concedes that there are many companies that already provide some form of retirement savings plan and while he says that those companies might be interested in what the CTA-provincial association plans are offering, “We also know that there are many that have not yet introduced such plans and we hope this provides them with an easy way of doing so.”

CTA officials say the new initiative is consistent with new federal legislation recently given Royal Assent which authorizes the introduction of Pooled Registered Pension Plans (PRPPs) in Canada. PRPPs are pooled, low-cost, transferable between employers and managed by regulated administrators intended to allow small and medium-size employers who do not currently provide retirement savings plans to band together to do so.